Step two: make sure you have what's required. you can fill the jars with a great deal of things but you need food coloring!

For my dismembered and messed up things I used fruits and vegetables

Step three: (for me) peel the oranges (making them look like gooey eyeballs) and place in one jar, then use the peel (looks almost like flattened intestines) in another jar.

Step four: Dismembered fingers! I used carrots. Cut off the smaller half

Step six: use the knife to sliver off a bit in the tip (like a finger nail) and then score around that (like a cuticle) and do small half moons about mid way for a knuckle

Next step: shrunken head! Take an apple (this is the most difficult), peel it (I threw this peel into the same jar as the orange peel) and then widdle away pieces till it resembles a face (focus on the eye, nose and mouth... makes it look the most like a head). Set it on a plate in the sun (indoors).

Step Seven: wait 2 days for the apple to dry out.

Step Seven point five: put water in the jars and use your food coloring to add a disturbing color to the mix (but be careful not to over do it or you can't see the specimen. Wash your hands well, screw the top on, wipe down the jars and place them where you want them on display.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

So with the holidays coming I can feel my pants growing tighter just at the thought of all the foods I will joyfully consume! When Gussy said to say Favorite recipe my mind went whirling... I can make decision and choose when I need to but with food... oh gosh am I so all over the place. I determined it is cute, no matter what my husband might say. It is one of my endearing qualities!

So for today I will feature a recipe instead of really choosing a "favorite". One of the things that always shows up around the holidays is this Peanut butter pie (my husband LOVES pb). It was passed down from my dear mother in law. Each time we make it we make it a little different. This particular time instead of the traditional crust be tried it with Oreos. Oh! I just remembered that I will be able to consume large amounts of a delicious thing called 300 dollar candy... *insert evil laugh*

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sometimes I really feel like there are little Gnomes stealing things from my house. You know there are times when you put something exactly where it should go; you come back later and there are not there. It is only my husband and myself so if I didn't move it and he didn't move it.... I blame a secret sect of Gnomes trying to take over the world...

Or that I move things with no recollection, but the Gnomes seem more logical :D All this to say we have our bathroom all prepped for putting down the tile and I can't find our spacers... Being the tight person I am, I find it very difficult to go out and purchase new spacers when I know that I have some. So after looking all throughout the house I only have one recourse: look again. Upon which time I might concede to the stealing Gnomes.

Do you ever have things go missing? I feel like it our lot in life... much like how the dryer eats socks... why socks when it has all of the clothes to choose from: it's trying to make you feel like you are crazy. (If you hadn't noticed, today is a good day for conspiracy.)

Thursday, October 20, 2011

This took a while, I am a big fan of accessories. They make little clothes seem a lot! It is what's so great about accessories. But if I had to choose on accessory: Vests! I am such a sucker for vests.

Maybe its the retro suit feel, or the kind of "power" feel of it, all I know is that it can take a terribly boring shirt and make it awesome in one fatal sweep, no matter the cut or color, buttoned or undone.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I love having friends over for dinner if only for the odd looks I get when I whip out my camera to take snaps of the process. This particular meal was no different; I had one friend look at me as if I had lost my mind and the other sympathetic head bob with scrunched nose, as if to say "you're so... special"

Today's menu:

Sauteed Rosemary potatoes

Garlic Eggplant

Roasted Basil Chicken

I love the "pick me" section of the produce area/ie "need to eat me soon". It is here that I took the adventure of some potatoes I didn't know well:

Fingerling, Purple Peruvian and Red potatoes

After rinsing them thoroughly, I sliced them all up into about .25" thick slices.

About the same time I melted some butter on the stove and cooked in some freshly chopped Basil.

With butter now cooled, no longer liquid, and the potatoes sliced and waiting in the pot, it was time for the chicken. After laying the leg quarters out in a Pyrex I used a sharp knife to make about an 1.5" wide slit in the skin but not the meat.

Then take the, now mostly solid, butter and push, any where around, a teaspoon into the slit you made in the skin.

Then to match the potatoes some I dusted the tops of the chicken with a bit of Rosemary, Oregeno, Salt, Pepper, and the tiniest bit of Celery seed. Then placed it in the oven at 350 and set it to cook for 30-45 minutes (depending on the pounds of meat).

Chicken in the oven cooking away I came back to the potatoes: I poured olive oil over them,just enough so the potatoes look evenly most and the bottom of the pan has a very small amount. Dusted the top with Rosemary, Salt, Pepper, a small bit of Garlic and a very small bit of dried ground Habanero pepper. Set the stove top at a medium heat and covered the pan, stirring occasionally.

I sliced the Eggplant into decent but not too great of size then placed it in a small pan with a bit of oil, Garlic and Basil. Put it over a just under medium heat, covered it, stirred occasionally.

Sadly I forgot to plate this one up... guess I was too anxious to eat it! By the time I remembered we had already gone through all the Eggplant and most the other two! Very tasty and a pretty low maintance dish: more importantly the full meal for five costs only 13! I got the chicken on sale for $.49 Lbs, the potatoes and Eggplant where both in the nearing to go bad discount section at Harris Teeter (totaling out at a whopping $4).

Is it bad that I get so excited at being cheap. My soon to be new brother in law said something along the lines of "You are more excited about the deal then what you get"... he found that odd. I find it awesome, but then again I'm biased.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Red makes me think of life. Its a color that can make everyday appliances seem fun. It is a color that makes me want to hear Christmas carols, eat pumpkin pie and enjoy a crackling fire. It is so silly how many memories can be pulled up by one color. It makes me think of blood and then of course vampires. I feel like red is one of the few colors found somewhere in every season. Anger and red are seemingly the same thing. Everything about red screams life to me.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I love making use of seeming useless things. I got given a bag full of "scrap" material. You know when you buy material specifically for a project and then have some material left over, seemingly not enough for another project. Well, this time I decided to make something... a blanket! I haven't decided what to do with the blanket yet but it is made :P

I lay the pieces out and try and make a pattern of some degree

After deciding the order/patter I start putting it together in strips and then sew those strips together

This particular day I got two blankets out of the scraps! Next time you go to throw out your scraps ... send them to me ;P You thought I was going to be all inspiring... nope, just want free stuff.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Do you have foods that make you think of locations? Well if you don't you should, because clearly Mahi Mahi is supposed to make you think of Maui. I mean really it is one letter off! It is asking for it.

I was at the Teet yestureday and picked up some Mahi cause it was on sale $6.99 lbs wild caught and it is delicious. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I haven't really cooked Mahi before. So I pulled out my handy dandy internet (yes, it is my internet... Al Gore gave it to me) and pulled up some recipies for Mahi. I looked at about 4 and then decided, as always, to wing it.

I took the suggestion to put some type of lubricant down in the buttom: less burning. I chose olive oil. Then I went with a asian feel. I topped the fish with Terrioki sauce, balsamic vinegar (only a little though because the crazy person that my husband is doesn't like it... silly, just silly), ground ginger, salt, pepper and a little butter tab on top.

All the while I had a bit of sweet potatoe on the stove top. Our dear friend Joey brings up stuff from his family "garden" (means farm to any of you who are like me and didn't grow up with acres of plants growing out back) and shares them with us. I used simply salt, pepper and bit of butter and that's it. Since the fish was busy with flavors I wanted something more simple for a side.

I started it at 450 degrees, not because it was best for it but I was finishing up some bread in the oven but didn't want to wait to put the fish in. So it was in at 450 for about 6 minutes and then another 20 or so at 350 degrees. You may want to cook it a bit longer cause we like to stay away from the well done side. Chris likes it raw if it is sashimi grade ( don't get me wrong I like sushi but when I think fish I think cooked), I'm pretty sure he is part whale.

With dinner we of course broke out the amazing and fantastic oil and herbs dipping stuff... SOoooo deilcious.